Army warns Idlib residents as deadline looms

Syria’s army yesterday warned residents of the country’s last major rebel bastion to stay away from militants, who have yet to withdraw from a buffer zone ahead of a looming deadline. Regime ally Moscow and rebel backer Ankara agreed last month to set up a demilitarised area around the northwestern region of Idlib to stave off a major regime offensive on a region that hosts some three mn people. The U-shaped zone aims to avert one of the worst humanitarian crises in Syria’s seven-year war. But militants, who under the deal must withdraw from 15 to 20-kilometre wide buffer zone by Monday, have not yet shown any sign of leaving. Residents in the area received warning messages on their mobile phones from the Syrian army early yesterday, an AFP correspondent said. “Get away from the fighters. Their fate is sealed and near,” one said. “Don’t allow the terrorists to take you as human shields,” said another, addressed to residents of the planned buffer zone. Idlib’s dominant force — an alliance led by Al Qaeda’s former Syria affiliate — and other militant factions control more than two-thirds of the planned zone. But the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) alliance has not yet officially responded to the deal, and a Britain-based war monitor said yesterday that no militants had left the planned buffer area. “There has been no withdrawal of any members of the militant factions with their light weapons,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. A rebel source inside the zone told AFP he had seen no HTS combatants leave.